


That Other First Time

by Tonko



Series: Strange Bedfellows [2]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Vampire, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-27
Updated: 2011-07-27
Packaged: 2017-10-21 19:38:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/228983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tonko/pseuds/Tonko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sanji, at sixteen, comes into the main part of his vampiric heritage, but doesn't know why he's not after blood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That Other First Time

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to the awesome [printfogey](http://archiveofourown.org/users/printfogey/profile) for the beta :D any remaining errors are all mine.

“Gods, no,” Sanji whined. He gagged, gorge rising as Zeff took the mug away. The first time, the pig's blood Zeff had offered had been tolerable, for all that Sanji had felt no craving for it when the weakness had begun three days before. Each time after, it had grown more and more difficult to force down, until last time he'd simply vomited it back up. He would not take any more.

The weakness worsened, he grew colder every hour. Zeff had put him to bed today, Sanji snarling all the while, Zeff curt and bewildered, because Sanji did not get sick and neither of them knew how to handle it. Even the first day after he'd turned thirteen, when he'd walked unthinking out into the street and the midday sun had hit him like blazing fist, scalding all his exposed skin in an instant and making stabbing pain explode in his skull... that recovery had taken some time, but he had spent it fuming and trying to get back to work, not gradually weakening and turning cold.

“Don't need that. Fucking STOP IT!” Sanji barked, and Zeff leaned back, glowering darkly, but Sanji could detect the fearful concern around the old man's eyes. “No more. I'm not pretending,” he added, forestalling Zeff's probable next comment. “Blood doesn't help. Doesn't fucking do anything,”

Neither of them knew anything of what to do, and there was no way to ask for help. The town had all thought the “vampire stuff” had all come to light, so to speak, when he'd been burned by the sun. An appetite for blood was not something either of them thought anyone else would need to know about.

Unless he died from it, maybe. Because it didn't make sense; Animal blood was sufficient even for full vampires... but Sanji knew appetite, knew the effect it had on taste and craving and simple basic need. The blood stirred none of that in him. Drinking it filled his stomach but did nothing for the bone-deep hunger that he didn't know how to slake.

“I'll be back later,” Zeff growled. Sanji sagged back against his pillows as Zeff left the room, closing the door quietly behind him.

The piled-on blankets did nothing to warm him, and Sanji laboriously pushed them back, hauling himself to his feet and staggering to his dresser. He grabbed at the edge to keep himself standing as his vision turned dark around the edges and his head spun. When it all cleared, or at least lessened, he made his arms rigid to stop the swaying and stared at himself in the mirror.

The drawn window shade did nothing to impede his vision—the burning of his skin in the sun had marked the beginning of his dark-sight, and he could see his pallor easily in the dimness of his room, as well as the sunken appearance of his cheeks and the bruise-like smudges around his eyes. All of that despite taking in good, normal food every day. The points of his fangs were visible as he panted, and he shook slightly despite his attempt to keep still and straight.

Risking the support of only one arm, he reached for a cloth with the other hand and dipped it in his washbasin, scrubbing over his face. He poured water from his jug into a mug, his grip wobbling and spilling water over the dresser top. He ignored it, too exhausted to care, and lifted the mug carefully with both hands. He took a mouthful and spat it into the spare bowl, driving the taste of mingled blood and bile from his mouth. He did it again, and a third time, before drinking the rest of the water, then opened the pot of mint paste he used each morning and rubbed it labouriously over his teeth.

He was cold, he was starving, but he could at least fix the taste in his mouth.

At last, he fell back onto his bed and simply lay there, imagining he could actually feel his life dripping away, like water from a cracked cup. If it emptied, what then? Travelers who ate no fruit or vegetables on long journeys could sicken and die for the lack of them, even if they ate meat every day. There was something essential there. Whatever essential thing he lacked, it was doing the same to him.

But that essential thing wasn't blood. That was a relief, to discover he could not live in the way the monsters did.

Even if he chilled to fading, he would be satisfied about that. Or so he told himself.

He didn't want to die.

Steps approached down the hall, stopped outside his door, the footfalls' cadence not Zeff's, but still familiar, and when Usopp tapped quietly on the door, Sanji grunted in acknowledgment.

“Sanji, hullo...” Usopp trailed off as he came in, standing still just inside the door. Sanji forced his eyes open, focused his gaze on his friend. Usopp looked distressed and tentative.

“Hey,” he managed.

“Zeff said you were ill, but...” Usopp closed the door with great care, as if the room itself were an extension of Sanji's weakened body. “He told me what it... This is... you look...”

“Yeah...” Sanji breathed, relieved that Zeff had not kept the truth from Usopp. Sanji would have told him anyway. “Gods, I'm... so hungry...” his breath hitched, frustration oozing its way back to the forefront of his mind. “But I don't know what _for_.” He tried to snarl. It was better to be angry about it than afraid, but he heard his voice come shaky instead of mad.

“Well... You're gonna fall right out of bed if you lie like that,” Usopp murmured, concern plain in his voice as he seized on a detail he could actually do something about. Sanji closed his eyes again and swallowed around the knot of cold-dulled fear in his throat.

Usopp came near, pausing by the end of the bed to pull some of the tangled blankets out of the mess Sanji had made of the covers.

Sanji lay, listless and chilled and scared, listening to Usopp begin a halting, unlikely story about some imps he'd encountered in a back alley the day before, and Sanji tried to listen, tried to concentrate on the comfortingly ridiculous tale. Usopp's warm hand closed around his ankle to shift his leg farther over on the bed. Sanji felt some of his body heat through the thin cloth of the worn-out drawstring trousers he wore.

“You're freezing!” Usopp interrupted himself.

“Can't get... warm,” Sanji said dully.

“Well, no, not like this! Let me cover you up properly.” Usopp came farther up the bed, sliding both arms under him to shift him back towards the center of the bed.

“Doesn't help,” Sanji told him, but moved obediently with Usopp's push, clinging to the faint amusement he felt at the mother-hen actions of his friend.

“You feel like when you fell through the ice on the river last winter,” Usopp said, sounding unnerved, and Sanji closed his eyes as Usopp's hands patted disbelievingly over his chest and shoulders. Then Usopp placed the back of his fingers against Sanji's forehead, in a rather pointless but probably reflexive gesture.

At the contact of skin on skin, a spear of voracious heat shot through Sanji, and his hunger spiked suddenly and painfully. He sucked in air, a sudden awareness igniting in him that he'd never had before, and sudden, painful hope, because there was something, there was _something_... He inhaled instinctively, somehow sure he would be able to smell it. The air bore all its usual scents, but yes, there was something _more_ , now, what...?

“Hey? You alright?” Usopp removed his hand instantly, but Sanji grabbed for his wrist, holding it. His grip wasn't very strong, but, though Usopp eeped in surprise, he didn't pull free. “I only touched you, what happened?” Usopp asked, studying him in confusion, and put his other hand on Sanji's face, slid it down to his neck. The touch was warm, gentle pressure, and Sanji moved into the touch.

Zeff had been warm too, when he'd manhandled Sanji into bed earlier, but it had felt distant, like Usopp's touch through his clothes, even when Zeff had done just as Usopp just had, to feel his temperature.

“You're warm, but it's different...” Sanji said vaguely, trying to concentrate.

“Oh gods, you need one-quarter-kobold blood don't you? I always knew I was special but this really wasn't what I had in mind!” Usopp's voice rose with each word into a terrified squeak, his eyes widened hugely, and Sanji could feel him shaking.

Then Usopp took a short breath, clenched his jaw and shoved an arm behind Sanji's back. He pulled him to a sitting position, and tilted his head, presenting his throat.

“Well, go on. Just try and leave me some, huh?” Usopp's voice was shaky, but determined. Lower, he added, “take it, Sanji. I don't care if you've been faking not wanting it or whatever. I'm not gonna let you die. Even if you do need blood, it doesn't make you a monster.”

That offer, even more than knowing something in Usopp could feed him, eased the fear Sanji had been trying to hold at bay all this time, even if the idea of biting anyone—especially Usopp—hard enough to draw blood sent a shudder of nausea through him again. No, _no_ blood.

Sanji had closed his hands around the back of Usopp's overalls automatically when he'd been hauled up. He adjusted his grip to keep from falling back again, though Usopp's arms around him were more effective right now, even if Sanji could feel the shakes in them.

“Usopp...” He tightened his arms slightly and let his heavy head fall onto Usopp's shoulder, facing deliberately away from his neck.“I swear by... by my kitchen knives, I'm not pretending. It was something else. Don't know what...”

Usopp was holding him tight in return, one hand rubbing quickly over his back, as if to warm him. “Al-alright.”

“Gods, you're... really warm,” Sanji, murmured, holding tight as he could. He turned his face now to press it against Usopp's neck, touch as much bare skin as he could. What was it his body had reacted to? He had to find out.

“You're really... not,” Usopp replied worriedly. After a pause, he added, hesitantly, “Remember what we did when you fell in the river?”

They'd taken a little trip, last year, to the river at the edge of Kaya's land, a two-day walk, to try some ice-fishing. There'd been an unseasonably warm day as they'd traveled, and Sanji had been slightly overzealous in his attempt to place the fishing hole towards the center of the river. In he'd gone, into water so freezing cold that it had knocked the air from him on contact. Quick as always, Usopp had looped a lasso around his flailing arm, catching him before he could be dragged under the ice by the current.

And then they'd both stripped down by the fire, holed up in their little snow-insulated lean-to shelter, while Sanji shivered his way back to normal body heat next to Usopp, combining heat under one blanket.

“Mm,” Sanji nodded slightly against Usopp. “Remember what happened after?”

It had been the first time for both of them. Full of elbows and clumsy laughter, Usopp blushing and Sanji pretending he wasn't nervous, and between both their pairs of hands, it had turned into something that was now a very good memory, though it had had no effect on the basic nature of their relationship, in the long run.

“Yeah,” Usopp laughed a little, nervous, but audibly less so from remembering what Sanji had just brought up.

Not that anything was likely to happen now. Though, even sharing the bed would normally carry a lot of potential embarrassment--Zeff could walk in at any time, and Sanji quailed inwardly at the very thought of _that_ situation.

But... it was the dinner rush, and Zeff would not leave that unsupervised, even now, not with Usopp come to visit and watch Sanji for the duration.

Usopp detached from Sanji, difficult as it was for Sanji to let him go, and stood up to take his boots off and undo his overalls. The light shirt and shorts underneath he left on, and then clambered into Sanji's narrow bed properly, mostly knees and elbows, but his skinny body was most of all just _warm_.

“Freezing,” Usopp muttered, but prodded and shoved and maneuvered until they were both on their sides, which fit better anyway, and face to face, Sanji tucking his head up under Usopp's chin and curling his arms between them, their legs tangled together. And with the pair of them under the blankets, it was indeed warmer, even for Sanji. Not enough, not nearly, but still so much better. Usopp wrapped both arms around him, one hand coming to rest on the back of his neck. “What was it, then, huh?” he asked quietly, fingers pressing almost like a massage, like he was trying to get the reaction out of Sanji again.

Sanji could smell Usopp, this close, what was a very familiar scent, firepowder and bow oil, and Usopp's own sweat. And something else, something he needed... it wasn't actually there but it felt like... like he somehow knew that it could be, which made no sense. And yet, Sanji had a growing sense of... potential nourishment. Like when he had all his ingredients for a meal laid out, ready to be prepared.

But for what?

Usopp tensed slightly. “Um,” he said faintly. “I know you were kidding, I'm really sorry. Just ignore it.” Sanji became aware of the nudge of an erection against him. Usopp shifted awkwardly, starting to put slightly more space between them.

Sanji didn't reply, didn't make a sound or even move, shocked into perfect stillness as the scent of arousal, inordinately strong, found its way to him.

 _This_. His instincts screamed at him. _This_. He _needed_ it.

Hunger surged over him in a violent wave. Saliva flooded his mouth.

His hands tightened into fists in Usopp's shirt. “I think...” Sanji said, distractedly, and yanked himself up face to face with his friend.

He paid no attention to the second apology that Usopp blurted, he just had to—he needed to—something gathered up inside him and he nudged against Usopp's chin, pushing it to move so he could reach his throat. “I think...” His lips, wet with saliva moved right against Usopp's skin.

“Hnnn—G-gods... what'd you...” Usopp clutched suddenly at Sanji. And like a slow summer wind, Sanji was surrounded with the awareness of warm lust rising in his friend, he could smell it, he could _feel_ it, and somehow he _knew_ it; it was as idiosyncratic as his scent, the energy feeding that lust, it was Usopp, it was the concentration for perfect aim and the bubbling energy to spin far-flung tales and that small, often-elusive but unbreakable core of courage.

The arousal it fed was enhanced and amplified, Sanji knew this because he had _caused_ it. He'd done this to him, could feel it in the hum of the rising tide.

With a massive effort, he went still. He spoke, “I think it's--”

Usopp's voice was strangled, and what came through was halfway between disbelief and agreement. “Sex--?”

“Yeah...”

They spoke together and over each other with the last word, and then fell silent again, both stock still, their breathing off-rhythm and loud in the small room.

Sanji could feel it inside Usopp, echoing back, some of the gathered energy that had passed between them just then, had ignited Usopp from within. Some. Not all. He had more, could do more. Now that he was aware of it, the energy, the vampire magic, the whatever-it-was that he'd used, now that it had surged forward so strongly just then, Sanji could feel the pool of it in his mind, choppy and restive with his hunger, ready to be used.

Sanji struggled with himself, stayed still, clamped his mouth shut, held his breath, even though his every instinct was bearing down on him to keep going. So lust wasn't blood—but he was no sexual predator.

“So then...” Usopp managed, “You're like... like an incubus... you know, I met one once, but he was... he was a monk...” he trailed off, panting. Sanji exhaled a laugh involuntarily before going still again. But not for long. “Keep going,” Usopp added between breaths, “don't stop. You need it.”

Sanji held on to himself for another few seconds, needing to prove to himself that he could, and then he closed his eyes, opened his mouth on Usopp's throat. The ready magic surged again as he licked a wet swath over Usopp's warm skin, the answering flood of lust in his friend's body instantaneous and so very close to being satisfying...

Usopp gasped and arched, fingers digging in painfully tight and his erection hot and hard and thrusting with immediate demand against Sanji, seemingly careless of the clothing in the way.

Sanji pulled back off his neck, letting his head fall to rest on the pillow while his hands yanked at Usopp's shirt, shoved at his shorts. One of Usopp's arms had locked around him, and he was moving against Sanji's busy hands with hard, deliberate thrusts while the other hand roamed with rough purpose.

“Uh, gods, lemme, lemme touch you, you're cold, 's cold, ah—!” Usopp's babble stumbled as Sanji wrapped both hands around his rigid length, the heat of it felt like it might sear his cold hands, but Usopp only moved into his grip.

Usopp seemed to want to touch as much as he wanted to be touched, just like last time, and it was a welcome background sensation, his spread hand sliding under Sanji's shirt, clumsy motions that matched with the disorganization of his words.

Sanji was cold, and he was starved, but he was an adolescent, and he could not endure Usopp's warm, eager touch and hear the sounds he made without responding. Usopp's thumb had hooked into the waist of his sleeping pants and now he shoved them down with no hesitation.

And then it was like that winter on the river, too many hands between them, rough and wonderful, and Sanji would soon be warm again, he knew it, as soon as—but Usopp's grip on him made his focus slew off a moment, hunger elbowed out of the way by his body's other need that had hurtled up and through with the roaring desire of a sixteen-year-old's libido.

There was a warm palm on him, slicked over with mingled precome, as Usopp muttered fragmented words of eager appreciation, and Sanji's orgasm hit like one of Usopp's flash-bangs, bright and sudden.

Some part of him marveled that Usopp's priority, when driven to heights of induced lust, was to get Sanji off first.

The vast majority of him got on with taking Usopp over the edge next, urgently aware of the relief it would bring to them both.

His hands stroked and coaxed and then Usopp's voice trailed off completely, he gasped and his thrusts into Sanji's grip turned to sharp, desperate motions. His body tightened, and then wet heat slicked over Sanji's hands.

It barely registered to his touch, because the rushing heat of Usopp's orgasm drew all his awareness, and Sanji knew, without knowing how he knew, how to reach for it, easy as breathing, how to pull it through Usopp's skin into his own body, felt the flood, and beyond it, to the well of Usopp's life-energy that it sprang from. A deep well, but not endless. Drawing too hard, too fast, might reach that source, might pull from what could not be replaced, but there was enough to fill him without pushing that far.

They both lay still as Sanji slowly became aware of plain old physical surroundings again, the crowded bed and heavy blankets and the warm shape of his friend.

Usopp blinked at him once, frowning sleepily, and Sanji stared, gathering his scattered thoughts together, Usopp spoke, voice slurred like it was when they'd been up for far too long. “D'it work?”

“Yeah,” Sanji replied. He was warm, he realized belatedly, because suddenly his body felt normal again, no seeping chill, no weakness... no hunger. He was warm, getting warmer, as the blankets kept their mingled body heat close.

Usopp grinned exhaustedly, closed his eyes, and hummed contentedly as he snuggled slightly into the pillow. Then he fell asleep.

Just like that, with Sanji's sticky hands still around his slowly softening penis, and his shorts halfway down his legs.

Sanji, suddenly worried, pulled his hands carefully free, wiping the mess on his shirt before returning Usopp's earlier gesture and placing a hand on his forehead. He felt normal. His breath was regular. There was no weird pallor or anything, and the pulse in his neck beat strong and steady. He was just... asleep.

Sanji shook him, just to make sure. Usopp grumbled and blinked awake. “You alright?” Sanji asked.

“Uh-huh,” he replied, then closed his eyes again. Just asleep.

Some effect of what Sanji had just done? Orgasms weren't usually quite that demanding, after all, at least not that abruptly. Sanji stared at him for long minutes. When nothing changed to support any real worry, he allowed himself to relax slightly. Maybe getting fed on was just really, really tiring?

Sanji, however, felt... fine. Better than fine, because he didn't think there was anything quite like realizing you were not going to die, and then getting immediately fed and laid at the same time.

He lay a few moments more, enjoying the suddenly novel sensation of slowly growing _too_ warm under the piled blankets. He eventually sat up, looked over at the mirror. His face wasn't that deathly-looking white anymore. He looked normal. He grinned, the points of his fangs now far less painful to look at than they had ever been.

He had to tell Zeff he was alright, before the old man got even more intolerably caring, tell him he'd figured out what—oh gods.

Sanji felt his face flush hot and saw colour flood the cheeks of his reflection. Healthy? Yes. About to be very, very, embarrassed?

Oh, fuck yes.

He threw off a couple of the extra blankets, then lay down again.

Maybe... he'd wait until after the dinner rush.


End file.
